
(toss ~PS35~Q / 

Book .1 ,418 (EH 

Copyright^ L__ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



ODES ON THE 
GENERATIONS OF MAN 



ODES ON THE 
GENERATIONS OF MAN 



BY 

HARTLEY BURR ALEXANDER 

AUTHOR OF 

"Poetry and The Individual" and 
" The Mid-Earth Life." 



NEW YORK 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 

MCMX 






Wo 



Copyright, 1910, by 
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 



Published, January, 1910 



THE PREMIER PRESS 
NEW YORK 



(gGLA256 



TO HUBERT GRIGGS ALEXANDER 
BORN DECEMBER 8, 1909, HIS 
FATHER INSCRIBES THESE ODES 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

The publishers beg to acknowledge the 
courtesy of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for 
permission to reprint the lines from "Tiamat" 
to be found on page 107, and also of Messrs. 
Longmans, Green & Co. for permission to re- 
print the lines on page no from Gilbert 
Murray's translation of " The Choral Prayer " 
from Euripides. 



OF THE POEM: 

A poem, like a musical composition, is sus- 
ceptible of varying interpretations according to 
the tempo and expression in which it is ren- 
dered. For the more regular poetic structures 
the rendering that answers to the author's 
mood may be expected to be obvious; but for 
a complex and varied poem, especially the ode 
in irregular strophes, the effective reading is 
often to be obtained only as a result of study. 
It has seemed, therefore, worth while (follow- 
ing worthy precedent) to aid the interpretation 
of the present composition by giving, for each 
division, indications of tempo and expression 
such as are customary in music. 

Of the poem's nine divisions the first and the 
last are Prelude and Postlude, — the purpose of 
the former being to establish the perspective of 
the composition, of the latter to return to this 
perspective with the enhanced insight gained 
from the intervening themes. The Odes fall 
into three groups, broken by two Interludes. 

[9] 



OF THE POEM 

In the first group, the Prelude leads into Ode 
I, which, moving with a marked crescendo to 
an abrupt retard, is an interpretation of man's 
evolutional genesis, while Ode II, slow and 
poignant, interprets his ideal evolution. The 
Interlude which follows is an antiphony of 
voices, with a certain skyey note, as it were on 
a plane above, less moved and more reflective 
than the Odes and having something of the 
broad perspective of the Prelude. In the sec- 
ond group, Ode III resumes the material devel- 
opment of man, sinking, through three changes, 
from the rapid history of the inaugural almost 
to quiescence in the final theme, — a quiescence 
preparing for the slowest movement of all, the 
vision of Ode IV. On the pause that should 
follow, the Dithyrambic Interlude breaks im- 
petuously with a sharp iteration of the ideal 
values of life, and again as from a plane re- 
moved. The third group is formed of the last 
of the Odes, deliberate, reflective, and for the 
most part elegiac in tone, gathering reminis- 
cently broken motifs of the preceding divisions, 
but in its final strophe prophetic of the en- 
hanced insight of the immediate Postlude. 



SYNOPSIS 

I 
Prelude : Largo 

Earth! 'Twixt sky and sky wide spun. 

II 

Ode I: Andante fiorito 

In strange tropic forests he awoke. 

Ill 

Ode II: Adagio pugnente 

Strange prayers ascending up to God. 

IV 

Antiphonal Interlude: Allegretto misterioso 

O'er quiet prairies swept tumultuous winds. 

V 

Ode III: Andante maestoso 

Of blood and dreams are built the towns of men. 

[13] 



SYNOPSIS 

VI 

Ode IV: Grave 

I had a vision of the King of Pain. 

VII 

Dithyrambic Interlude I Allegro appassionato 

Awake! For the white-pillared porches 
Of dawn are flung open to day! 

VIII 
Ode V: Adagio elegiaco 

There comes a kind of quieting with years. 

IX 
Postlude : Largo 

Earth ! Thou wert his Mother. 



[14] 



PRELUDE 

Earth! 'Twixt sky and sky wide spun 



I 

Largo 

Earth! 
'Twixt sky and sky wide spun, 
The blue sky of the sun, 
The black abyss 
Of night and silence blent 
Where to their slow extinguishment 
Fall fated stars and the still years miss 
All measurement : 

Earth! 
Ancient of our days, 

Our life's great mother and of our mortal ways 
High matriarch, 
What destiny shall be 
Beyond thy bournes — or visionry 
Glad in phantasmic splendors or a stark 
And wakeless rest 
Sconced in thy stony breast, — 
What dooming makes or mars 
[17] 



ODES 

Beyond mortality, 

Is given us to see 

But as we read aright 

Writ in our mid-earth life the mighty geste 

Of Nature, but as we guess the plan 

That wrought the mind of man 

And gave him sight 

Potent to gauge the pathways of the stars! 



[18] 



ODE I 

In strange tropic forests he awoke 



II 

Andante fiorito 
In strange tropic forests he awoke 
From the long brute dream : 
In strange tropic forests that did teem 
With golden insects and bright-plumaged birds, 
With gliding serpents and the myriad herds 
Of eldritch things that crawl within the dusk: 
All odorous the air of myrrh and musk, 
And cloying honeys, camphors, fennels dense, 
Prickle and pungence mingling with incense 
Of opiate decay: 
While all the throbbing day 
The warm forestways did thrill 
With singing sound — with murmurous hum 
Of bees, and buzz and drone and drum 
Of slim metallic wings insatiate, 
Flutings of locusts and soft-throated trill 
Of slow reptilians calling mate to mate: 
Aloft, scarce quivered by the torpid breeze, 
[21] 



ODES 

Swung leafy banners, and mightily the trees 
Were girt with climbing seekers of the sun : 
Below, the speckling shadows spun 
Their lazy meshes, and drowsily did play 
O'er a sleek panther crouched to stalk the prey 
That timorously advanced that fatal way. 

In strange tropic forests, he, the Brute, 

Dreaming became the Dreamer. . . From their 

ease 
He stirred his mighty limbs, roused him from 

rest, 
Reared upright in his leafy crest, 

And long and mute 

He gazed afar where his troubled vision caught 

Glint of the wide sea luring through the trees. 

Was it a touch unseen 

Of the Moulder's hand that swift and keen 

Struck to the misty depths of his forming mind 

Vague premonition of a human kind 

To spring from his being? Growth 

[22] 



ODES 

In its pang of promise rousing him from sloth 

Of brute life? Sudden thrill 

Of an age-old blood working its final will? 

From his lips there broke 

A man-like cry. 

The startled echo sought 

New answer and new answer spoke; 

And all the myriad listeners in their lairs 

Stood guard, and their myriad pairs 

Of gleaming eyes kept vigil, while bodingly 

The high heart beat with a fear untaught. 

Then the swift wings brushed 
Through sibilant leafage, and with sudden stir 
From reedy depths rose angry hiss and burr, 
And far and near began 
A hasting of the forest-dwellers' clan 
And rustling flight, as if portentous word 
The hidden hosts impulsively had stirred 
With direful message ominous of Man. 
[23] 



ODES 

The strutting cock drooped low his spreading 
plumes 

And babbled plaintive warning to his mate; 

The parrakeets slunk silent where the glooms 

Of tropic fronds might hide their burnished 
state ; 

The chattering monkeys scampered far aloft 

Swinging in panic huddle tree to tree, 

And demonlike from out his hidden croft 

The vampire dashed in blinded errancy; 

White-bearded lemurs, furtive in their nests, 

Betrayed their spectral faces to the day; 

And sluggish serpents reared their glittering 
crests 

Up from the humid mold with sinuous sway — 

Hiss reechoing hiss as all their evil kind 

Startled to dim forewarning of its foe 

Fanged fierce defiance to the conquering Mind, 

God-demon to the beasts that crawl below. 

God-demon to the beasts from whence he 
sprung 

[2 4 ] 



ODES 

Into the life of Dreamer dreaming free 
Out of the Old the New — bright worlds to be 
From every world created, deep among 
The farther stars yet farther burning clear, 
High sun outshining sun in every sky, — 
Till glamour flashes glamour on his eye, 
And summons rouses summons in his ear, 
And purpose waking purpose breeds the skill 
To find the ways of Nature and to bend 
Her laws to his design, to his her end, 
And Destinies are humbled to his Will! 

He swung 

Balanced with muscled ease — 
Courser of the spaceways of the trees — 
Tawn against the sky, insouciant 
To all his nether realm's monstrosity 
Of nutrient decay and fruitful leprosy: 
Fat livid growths and starvelings gaunt 
Mingling the breath 
Of noisome life with murk of death 
[25] 



ODES 

In the black loins of forest, — whence upflung 
The great sun-seeking pillars of his world! 
Huge girths, with writhing parasites encurled, 
And heavy hung 

With bearded mosses, whilst pale orchis-ghosts, 
Clinging with desperate tendrils to their hosts, 
Glimmered like stars the dusky fronds among. 

So he swung 

Midway 'twixt Earth and Heaven, mute, 
His straining eyes 
Smitten with visioned destinies: 
With vague surmise 
Of glories yet to spring 
In some dim way from his disquieting, 
Of mighty beings that should make their own 
The snowy splendors of the peaks that shone 
Beyond the luring seas — 
Races Titanic and the battling broods 
Of Northern giants for whose monstrous toil 
Flame should be servant and the granite earth 
[26] 



ODES 

A plastic minister, — till the full spoil 
At length be won to some high birth, 
Conqueror and King 
Of those far-shining altitudes! 

And the dreaming Brute 

Dimly foredreamt the plan 

And image of Divinity; and at last 

Were far desire and aspiration vast 

Wakened to living spirit; and in Man 

Creation was at fruit. 



[27] 



ODE II 

Strange prayers ascending up to God 



Ill 

Adagio pugnente 
Strange prayers ascending up to God 
Through all the aching aeons, year on year; 
Strange tongues uplifting from the sod 
The old antiphony of hope and fear: 
Strange if He should not hear! 

There was the primal hunter, where he stood 
Manlike, not man, lone in the darkening wood 
When fell the storm: 
From hill to hill it leaped, snuffed light and 

form, 
Licked up the wild, 

And him — lost hunter! — him left isled 
Mid desolation. Bogey-wise 
Down the tempestuous trail 
Gaunt Terrors sprang with shrill wolfish wail 
And windy Deaths flew by with peering eyes . . . 
Then in the dread and dark 
To the dumb trembler staring stark, 
[3i] 



ODES 

Just for the moment, beaconlike there came 

The Ineffable, the Name ! . . . 

Oh, wildered was the dull brain's grope 

With anguish of a desperate dear hope 

Escaping ! . . . 'Twas a Name 

Not his to frame 

Whose clouded eye, tongue inarticulate, 

Thought's measure and thought's music yet 

await : 
Not his the Name. . .but such the hunter's cry 
As souls do utter, that must die ! 

There was the bronze-hued youth who knelt in 

awe 
Within a shrine of cypress and of fern 
Dewed with baptismal spray 
From the granite urn 

Of the down-plunging cataract, giant-wrought. 
Night and day 

With yearning eyes he sought 
The vision that the waters' sprite should give 
[32] 



ODES 

To be his totem, — signing his right to live 

And die the warrior, soul secure 

That with him stood 

The invisible brood 

Of valiant powers peopling his solitude. 

Against the gleaming blue 

From the bald crag there flew 

The Eagle of his dreams, and far and clear 

Above the choric waters, to his ear: 
" I am the Wakan of the Middle Sky, 1 
" Dwelling the Shining Quiet nigh, — 
"Come follow, follow, follow! Glory is on 
high!" 

Oh, light to endure 

Is ache of fast and vigil, be the cure 

This right with eagle gaze deep worlds to span ! 

So strode he to his tribesmen a warrior and a 
man. 

There was the savage mother : she who gave 
Her child, her first-born, wailing into the hand 
[33] 



ODES 

Of the black priest, upright at the prow. . . 
The glistening bodies rhythmicly did bow, 
And from the rushy strand 
Broad paddles drave 
The sacrificial craft with gauds bedecked. 
He held it high — 
With mummery and mow 
The fetish priest held high 
The offering, — then stilled its cry 
Beneath the torpid wave. . . 
Sudden the pool was flecked 
With scaly muzzle, yellow saurian eye, 
And here a fount of crimson bubbling nigh ! . . . 
Shout came answering shout 
From all the horde 
That round about 

Waited the sign of fetish god adored, 
Waited the sign with lust of blood implored ! . . .' 
But she — the mother, — in her eyes there shone 
A dazzle of calm waters, and her heart's flood 
Was dried, and bone of her bone 
[34] 



ODES 

Burned in her, and she stood 
Like to an image terrible in stone. 

Aye, men have prayed 

Strangely to God: 
Through thousand ages, under thousand skies, 
Unto His thousand strange theophanies, 
Men have prayed. . . 
With rite fantastic and with sacrifice 
Of human treasure, scourged with the heavy rod 
Of their own souls' torment, men have prayed 

Strangely to God. . . 
East, North, South, West, 
The quartered Globe, 

Like a prone and naked suppliant whose breast 
A myriad stinging memories improbe — 
Hurt of old faiths, 
And the living scars 

Of dead men's anguish, slow-dissolvent wraiths 
Of long-gone yearnings, and delirious dream 
Of sacrificial pomp and pageant stream: 
[35] 



ODES 

Gods of the nations and their avatars ! — ■ 
East, North, South, West, 
The suppliant Globe 

Abides the judgment of the changeless stars, — 
Abides the judgment and the answering aid 
Of Heaven to the prayers that men have prayed 
Strangely to God. . . 

Out of the living Past, 
Children of the dragon's teeth, they spring 
Full-panoplied — the idols vast 
That man has wrought of man's imagining 
For man's salvation . . . 
Isle and continent, continent and isle, 
Lifting grim forms unto his adoration 
In tireless variation 
Of style uncouth with style, 
Until the bulky girth 
Of the round zoned Earth 
Is blazoned o'er 

As with a zodiac of monsters, each dread lore 
[36] 



ODES 

In turn begetting dreadful lore. 

The gods of Aztlan : 2 Huitzil, gorge agape, 
His threatening barb 
Uplifted, body girt chain upon chain 
With jewels in the shape 
Of human hearts, — Huitzil, and he, 
The lord of winged winds and the lord of rain, 
Quetzal, gorgeous in his garb 
Of tropic plumage ; and a deity 
Than these more awful — the subtile one 
Whose form to sight is glass and to the touch 
Is thinnest air, — 

Tezcatlipoca, joying to make his couch 
Deep in the thoughts of men, and there, 
Behind the screen of sense, 
Invisible, impalpable, immense, 
Begetting wrathful war. . . 
Stair after wretched stair 
The captive mounts the teocalli's height, 
Where wait the ministers of the bloody rite 
[37] 



ODES 

Mid murk of smoking altars. Scarce the prayer 
Escapes his parched lips, ere the throbbing 

heart 
Is raised to Tonatiuh, to the Sun, — 
And blare of conches and the shrill upstart 
Of pipes proclaim the blood-bought benison : 
How God at last with man is wholly one 
Beneath the burning mansions of the Sun ! 

They arise 

From the dark burials of the nations : 

From plain and mountain, from desert and 
from field, 

Like ghostly monarchs from a tomb long 
sealed, 

They arise — 

These living dead, mid echoing sound 

Of olden supplications: 

Isis, and her lord Osiris bound 

In mummying cerements; 

Thoth, of the hawklike head, 

Bearing the mystic Book that read 

[38] 



ODES 

Unto the living the secrets of the dead; 

And out of the Orient, the azure queen, 

Astarte of the Skies, serene 

Above her horned altars, with the sweet 

Of myrrh and frankincense 

And the multitudinous bleat 

Of bullocks honored ; she of Ind, 

Kali, the black, passing like a wind 

With blight and pestilence; 

And the giant ape, red Hanuman, her 

mate 
In might immortal and immortal hate; 
Ormazd and Ahriman warring light with 

night ; 3 
And Mithras, the Conqueror, who gave 
The blood baptism of the cave 
Men's souls to save; 

And nigh these, the lordly ones and bright 
Who in their godly right 
Of beauty ruled and feasted on Olympus' 

height. 

[39] 



ODES 

From the dark burials of the nations 
Mid echoing supplications 

They arise . . . 
Mid echoing supplications: 
Prayers and cries 

Of men in strait of battle, ecstasies 
Of saints, and the deep-toned call 
Of prophets prophesying over all 
The devastation of a kingdom's fall . . . 
The ruins of the temple still resound 
With women weeping Tammuz' yearly wound; 
And still from out the vale 
Do ghostly voices lift the ancient wail 
Of those who gashed their bodies, crying 

"Baal! Baal!" 
When Baal was gone ahunting. Still Mahound 
Leads desert hordes to battle: 
" Allah ! Ya Allah ! Ya Allah ilah Allah ! " 
And Paradise is found 
In arch of flashing cimetars. Still go 
In nightly revelry through field and town 
[40] 



ODES 

Curete, Bacchant and wild Corybant, 4 
Rapt Maenad by the god intoxicant, 
And the swift-dancing rout 
Of frenzied Galli raising olden shout 
To Attis and to Cybele : 
" Io Hymenaee Hymen Io ! 
" Io Hymen Hymenaee! "... 
While adown 

The vanished centuries endure 

The chanting of dead Incas: " Make me pure, 

" O Vira Cocha, make me ever pure ! " . . . 

— There, in the blackness of Gethseman's grove, 
One anguisht night He strove 
Mightily with God. . . 
Hour by hour there passed 
Athwart the gloom 

A huge ensanguined image, like a shadow cast 
By outstretched arms, and overspread 
The living and the dead 
Throughout the wide worlds room. . ., 
[41] 



ODES 

And so His prayer was said, 
And answered. 

Oh, up to God 

Through all the aching aeons, year on year, 

Men's prayers ascend, 

In hope and fear 

Striving to bend 

His pity and His wrath forefend. . . 

Strange if He should not hear! 



[42] 



ANTIPHONAL INTERLUDE 
O'er quiet prairies swept tumultuous winds 



IV 



'First voice: 
O'er quiet prairies swept tumultuous winds 
Through the wide-pasturing skies their bil- 
lowy flocks aherding; 
While poised on the marge of day the lingering 
sun 
The circle of the earth with zones of flame 

was girding. . . 
And, oh, the heart of man beat high with 
hope past wording! 

Second voice: 

Summons of the western sea, 

Lure of the sunset gold, 
Tales of the things to be 
By the mighty ones of old, 
Into his spirit borne with a poignancy untold. 



[45] 



ODES 

First voice: 

From the mummying East he came, a wanderer, 
At last the tropic thrall of her lotos-dream 
outstriven, 
From her whispering embraces at last re- 
leased, — 
As into an alien world from their sweet Eden 

driven, 
In mournful quest of peace wander souls un- 
shriven. 

Second voice: 

Forth of the ancient East 
Into the glowing West, 
(Dream of a richer feast 
Filling his aching breast 
With an ever new desire, with an ever old 
unrest. 



[46] 



ODES 

First voice: 

Oh, far it is to the hills whose climbing peaks 

Ensentinel the plain like armored wardens 

shining; 

And far it is where the stars their watches 

keep, 

Above the dark abyss in spacious courses 

twining. . . 
And far to the final haven foreseen of the 
heart's divining. 

Second voice: 

Out of the level plain, 
Into the silent skies, 
Rises the glittering chain 
Like a coast of Paradise, 
And the spirit of man is big with yearning of 
high emprize. 



[47] 



ODES 

First voice: 

The spirit of man ever burns for the things 

unseen, 

When strong in moody will the valiant soul 

rejoices, — 

But only the Sages of Pain can reckon the toil, 

And only the Choosers can tell the cost and 

the gain of their choices. . . 
Far down the aisles of Time echo their ring- 
ing voices: 

Second voice: 

1 Who conquereth through pain, 

His be the eagle's share! 
He shall ride the hurricane, 

He shall nest in the thunder's lair, 
And the solitudes of Heaven by the might of 
his pinions dare! " 



[48] 



ODES 

First voice: 

Men walk in ways untrod, seeking the goal 
In mystic oracles by the archons of life fore- 
spoken, 
And the pace is ever slow and the step is halt, 
And many there be are lost, and many there 

be are broken, 
And whoso is strong in the race his brow 
bears a terrible token. 

Second voice: 

Token it is of thought 

That hath easelessly inbled, 

Sight that his eyes have caught — > 

Like a seeing by the dead — 

Of the far alluring plains his feet may never 

tread. 



[49] 



ODES 

First voice: 

From the ancient East he came into the West 
In the dawn of his human life, in the days of 

his soul's unbinding, 
And out of the West to the East with the cir- 
cling years, 

And out of a blinded Past into a Future 
blinding. . . 

For the course of his star is set to ways be- 
yond his finding. 



[50] 



ODE III 

Of blood and dreams are built the towns of men 



Andante maestoso 
Of blood and dreams are built the towns of 

men: 

Of bitter blood and lustful dreams of power, 

And of men's black endeavor and the tears 

Of pallid women weeping through the years. 

The slow-unwinding scroll 

Measures the centuries . . . and at her hour, 

Answering the summons, comes 

Each city, — as after battle, to the roll 

March broken regiments 

With throb of sullen drums . . . 

Each city comes, rising avast 

From out sepulchral cerements, 

And then, 

Like a dissolvent spectre, sinks again 

Into her buried past. 

[53] 



ODES 

Memphis is gone 

And Thebes of an hundred gates, — 

But still the Sphinx unblinkingly awaits 

The reader of her riddle, and still 

With each recurrent dawn 

The disked sun 

Smites singing Memnon. 

Where now, where now, are those 

Whose pageantries did fill 

The cities of the living? They are led 

In bonds, with veiled head, 

Into still chambers — and the light and laughter 

Of their feasts hath followed after . . . 

Oh, wiselier skilled, 

The dark twy-crowned Pharaohs 

Wiselier did build 

Their desert cities of the dead! 

Whose burning granite sears 

Their kingly names into the passing years. 

[54] 



ODES 

As in a dream I saw the aching myriads 

Toiling the toil 

Stupendous of the pyramids. . . 

Athwart the soil 

They dragged the monolithic stones, 

And far and near did flash 

The whipster's ruddy lash : 

I heard the groans 

Of men that labored dying, 

And I heard the sound 

Of little children crying. . .crying. . . 

Then my dream vanished; and I saw instead 

A silent desert, and mound with mound 

The crumbling habitations of the dead. 

Memphis and Thebes are gone, 

And mighty Babylon! 

She that league on league was girt 

With brazen-gated walls, whilst the spires 

Of her thousand temples shone with the fires 

Of a thousand altars: Babylon! 

[55] 



ODES 

Doughty to keep or hurt, 

Mightiest thou wert 

In all the plain of Shinar! — 

Wide Shinar, where anciently was sung 

In Accad's perished tongue, 

The war of Light and Chaos: 5 how, flashing 

leven, 
Lordly Marduk strave 

With cloudy Tiamat, and from her body clave 
Earth and high Heaven. . . 
While jubilant 
The dancing stars their morning joy did chant. 

E'en from the voiceless days 

Of man's beginnings, within her ample halls, 

The powerful and the wise have held their 

state : 
Priest-kings that sate 
In judgment by the temple gate; 
Monarchs loud in the praise 
Of long-forgotten gods; the patient seers 
[56] 



ODES 

Who through uncounted years 

Charted the nightly heavens; conquerors 

In unrecorded wars ; 

And contrite builders, paying holy debt 

Of symbol'd towers, that yet 

Were but memorials of memorials. 

Wise Hammurabi, he who set 
On graven tables men's first laws; 
Sargon, with bonds of stubborn clay 
Binding the free Euphrates; and that queen, 
Glorious in strength, terrible in spleen, 
Whose name still awes 
The centuries, — Semiramis! Yea, 
And after these, the form — 
Shadowy and colossal as the desert Jinn — 
Of him who like a whirling storm 
On Judah fell, 
And for her impious sin 
Carried her wailing to captivity, — 
Nebuchadrezzar, mighty under Bel ! . . . 
[57] 



ODES 

And Cyrus came, and the Great King 

Darius, and o'er Asia furled 

The Persian wing. 

And after, out of Macedon came he, 

The splendid Greek, who won 

Domain of the level world, 

And died in Babylon. 

So she that was the Seat of Life, 
She is become a mound 
Of sunken ruin, compassed round 
With silence. Her palaces begot 
In the emulous strife 
Of dynasties, her temples crowned 
Each with its golden ziggurat — 
Labor of captive nations long ago, 
Whose final course was run 
Beneath a pestilential sun 
For kingly pleasure and for kingly show,- 
They are become but heaps 
Of rotting bricks, where stealthily creeps 
[58] 



ODES 

Down the forgotten stair 

The gaunt cat of the desert to his lair. 

Who reckoneth the roll 
Of perished cities?. . . 
Lost Nineveh 

O'erwrit with boast of carnage, and the strewn 
Boulders of Persepolis, and far Pasargadae, — 
Oh, big in pomp and pride were they, 
And lean in pities!. . . 

And Petra, from the living rock strange-hewn; 
And athwart the desert way, 
Palmyra of the Pillars taking toll 
Of laden caravans; gray Sidon by the Sea, 
And siege-strong Tyre; Sardis rich in gold 
And in lust richer ; and Priam's town, 
Ilion, of old 
For war high-armed ! 
Yea, and lovely in abandonment 
As a charmed princess in a castle charmed, 
The marble tent of Mogul Akbar 6 . . . 
[59] 



ODES 

And the great exemplar, 

She that was ground unremittingly 

Betwixt the upper and the nether mill, — 

In dreadful alternation bent 

Beneath the supple claws 

Of the lithe Egyptian, or stricken down 

By the muscled bull, Assyria, — 

Zion, builded on a hill ! . . . 

And last, giver of their laws 

Unto the nations, Imperial Rome, — 

Like some vast volcanic dome 

That falling into ashes stars 

The waste with lurid splendors. 

They pass 
Like dreams of glory, and their names 
Become as sounding brass, 
And their lordly vaunt 
Is in men's mouths a byword and a taunt 
As cities shall pass, — or in the flames 
Of swift disaster, or in the rust 

[60] 



ODES 

Of years, — each to its due extinguishment 

Under the sun . . . 

Until to the lingering one — 

Some far broad-domed Bokhara falling into 

dust — 
The planet stays her nutrient yield, 

And the desert gates are sealed 

On the last oasis of a dying continent. 

Ah, shall there be ere then 
The Perfect City?... 
The city wistfully forethought 
By men whom men count wise: 
As in a stately dream 
To Plato came in marble Academe 
His vision of the City of the Blest — i 
A vision in her dim unrest 
By the imagination pearled 
To harmonize an inharmonic world, — 
A place of marvel, more to the soul's emprize 
Than Cibola's golden seven, 7 — Utopia, wrought 
Of strength and beauty ! . . . 
[61] 



ODES 

Her spacious plan 

Is broad to house the nations, her citizen 

Is such a Man 

As was designed 

By the Archetypal Mind 

When in shadowy seas began the strife 

Of life begetting and destroying life — 

A Man destined to reign 

High Overlord of Fear 

And King of Nature, holding as his domain 

The charted sphere ! . . . 

Ah, shall there yet be 

This Earthly (Paradise? 

This habitation of felicity 

Foretokening the City of the Skies? 

This seat of mortal bliss 

Whose image renders 

Unto the spiritual eye 

Forevision of that vast metropolis 

Of the immortals, 

[62] 



ODES 

Which to the soul lays ope 

Eternal portals?. . . 

Altitude o'er altitude lifting high 

Its emulous splendors — 

Whereof the culmen is the Cosmic Hope ! . . . 

To-day the cities that we build 
Possess a monstrous beauty, — as if material 
Dug in some quarry of old thought, 
Some castle ruinous of mind, some burial 
Of dead desire, 

Mossed block by mossed block were drawn 
And carven to an airy vision caught 
From the large magnificence of the mellow 

dawn . . . 
Till with dome and pinnacle and spire 
Each in its own resplendancy afire 
Appears the City, many-hilled 
And glorious, — summoning on and on 
In iterance majestical 
Like ringing prophecies long unfulfilled. 
[63] 



ODES 

Oh, we have heard 

The summoning of the City from afar ! 

Calling with a blurred 

And multitudinous voice, like the voice resolvent 

Of the waves upon a distant bar; 

And her echoing word, 

Sovereign and solvent, 

Has drawn us as a spell 

Living and irresistible: 

"I am the City. . . 
" The secret thing ye seek 
" My lips, my lips, my myriad lips alone 
" Are wise to speak: 

"I am the City. . . 
" The life that ye would live 
" My life, my life, my manifold life alone 
" Is strong to give: 

"lam the City..." 
We have heard, — and for a day, 
As in some dusty caravanserai 
Cosmopolite with pilgrims, we have sate 
[64] 



ODES 

Within her gates, disconsolate 

For the still and starry zone 

Of night and the sea's resurgent monotone. 

From the low flood, murky as the Styx, 

That soughs and licks 

Along her massy and tenebrous base 

With* changeful treachery of calm and race, 

The city's skyline rises, jagged, black, 

Against the lightening east, — funnel and stack 

Each with its waft of sullen fume 

Outwavering, like a fetid plume 

Flaunted in the face 

Of morning purity, — 

Until the city seems to be 

Some grim volcanic chain 

Upheaved athwart the sombre plain, 

Yet dully quaking, 

Of a continent in the making. 

And she is the house of life 
And the palace of desire, 

[6 5 ] 



ODES 

And all her ways are thronged with hurrying 

feet, 
And all her stately edifice is rife 
With seekers for a hidden sweet. . . 
And she is the house of death 
And a charnel of perished hope, 
And all her dark foundations are bestead 
Mid bones of men that for her hire 
Inbreathed her pestilent breath . . . 
And in her noisome alleys grope 
Wan mothers grieving for their tiny dead. . . 

She hath twain souls: 
Whereof the one 

Is metal'd o'er with armor, plate on plate 
Of gold and shining silver conflagrate 
And steel of curious enginry, 
Till like the molten sun 
He is — Mammon, who takes his tolls 
Of women's love and of the strength of men, 
And of youth's hot blood and aching visionry, 
[66] 



ODES 

Eking a senile and decrepit joy 

From the ranger fancy of the boy 

Caught by the glitter of his shrewd decoy. . . 

Mammon is the one. His mate 

Is nameless, a spirit sovereign 

And dark, whose stern far-seeing gaze 

Searches the hidden ways 

Of life, and reads the regnant fate 

That measures weal to come 

Against her present hecatomb. 

High on a swinging beam — 

The collar of a tower, taut 

With steely rib and tendon, building nigher 

To heaven than e'en Babel did aspire, — 

Stood forth the Man, the Maker, caught 

Up into the skies . . . 

He gazed below 

Into the street — a microscopic show 

Aswarm with skurrying atomies; 

Then raised his eyes 

[671 



ODES 

O'er plain and river and far-shimmering seas, 

Unto the quiet blue. . . 

And his spirit grew 

Glad in eternal majesties, 

And the works of men did seem 

But frail and wind-blown tenements 

Marking the slow ascents 

Unto the splendors of his ancient dream. 

Of blood and dreams are built the towns of 

men: 
Of bitter blood and lustful dreams of power, 
And dreams of beauty. . . 
Throughout the years 

Meted by men's endeavor and women's tears, 
Like regiments to duty, 
They come, answering the roll — 
City on city and nation after nation . . . 
And throughout the years 
On far horizons aye appears 
The City of the Spirit, biding the hour 
[68] 



ODES 

Of advent and of consecration . . . 
Yea, throughout the years 
Man's aspiration finds its changeless goal 
In aspiration. 



[69] 



ODE IV 

/ had a vision of the King of Pain 



VI 

Grave 
I had a vision of the King of Pain 
In awful crucifixion high enthroned 
Within the hollow of a universe 
Emptied of light and substance: there was 

night 
inimitably deep, whose galaxies 
Were shrunk to puny and ineffectual stars 
And brought to naught mid spacious desolation. 

I saw a ghostly glamour spun afar 
Athwart the surface of the black abyss 
In nebulous perturbation, and I heard 
A sound like to a smothered turbulence 
Of distant and distressful multitudes 
Whose myriad voices were molten to one cry 
As metals in a furnace to one heat. 
[73] 



ODES 

They were the souls of human agonies, 
The countless spirits of the hurts that men 
Have suffered for the making of the world: 
Harsh pangs of birth and grievings for the 

dead 
And smarts of passion, and strain of them that 

strove 
Till broken on the rack of their endeavor, 
And the wound of them that sought with sight- 
less eyes. 

Out of the nether night, a spectral train, 
They came, mounting her gloomy altitudes 
In a huge crescendic flame of living torments ; 
And they bore faces, faces fixed and terrible 
Like to the faces of men dead in anguish ; 
And they uplifted pleading arms— yea, myriads 
Of pleading arms they raised emptily on high. 

They were the souls of human agonies 
Caught up into a vast and eddying throe 
[74] 



ODES 

Of wraths and woes and tears, and far outspun 
By the great whorl of changeless destinies; 
They were the souls of human agonies 
Offered upon the altar of the world 
In expiation of the cosmic sin. 

Out of the night they came tumultuously 
Upsurging through the void until they rose 
Unto the awful station of the Throne 
Of suffering, whereof th' ensanguined light— 
Like to the searching rays with which the sun 
Metes out the millions of the comet's miles — 
O'er that dread train shot sanguine revelation. 

And all their clamorous and woeful cry 
Was blended to a deep threnodic prayer 
For pity, that did beat, as shattered waves 
Upon a rock, desirous and despairing, 
High on the cosmic Calvary, where his Rood 
Did mightily upbear the thorn-crowned King 
Above the abysmic center of the world. 
[75] 



ODES 

I had a^vision of the King of Pain 
Uplifted o'er the souls of human hurts 
In terrible Atonement; and his eyes, 
Anguisht and compassionate, were on them 

turned 
Everlastingly, and everlastingly 
His palms, nail-riven to the Cross, were spread 
In awful benediction o'er their woe. 

Yea, I beheld the Lordship of the World 
Midmost of the circling universe enthroned 
In high and kingly beauty; and I knew 
The sovereign cost of life, and again I knew 
The sovereign redemption; and I saw 
How through the aching aeons still is paid 
The price of beauty in a price of pain. 



[76] 



DITHYRAMBIC INTERLUDE 

Awake! For the white-pillared porches 
Of dawn are flung open to day! 



VII 

Allegro appassionato 

Awake! For the white-pillared porches 

Of dawn are flung open to day! 
And the jubilant voices of morning 
With laughter and boisterous warning 
On, on through the azuring arches 
Summon away! 

Awake! They are dead who are sleeping! 

Awake ! They who drowse are unborn ! 
'Tis the voice of the summoning spirit, 
And they who delay when they hear it 
Are the lame and the halt and the creeping 

Creatures of scorn! 



[79] 



ODES 

'Tis a radiant damsel arraying 

Her beauties with ruby and pearl, — 
Tis the scarlet and gold and the glamour 
Where mid clashing of arms and mid clamor 
Of trumpets and war-horses neighing 
Banners outfurl, — 

'Tis the leap and the swing of the dancers, 
Where the torches are circling on high, 
Who call on strange gods in their madness 
To stay them, to stay them of gladness, — 
'Tis the pitiless charge of the lancers 
That smite hip and thigh, — 

'Tis the rush of the blood in its prisons, 

'Tis the beat of the blood in the ears, 
'Tis the shock of the heart and the shiver 
Of the soul when the red living river 
Is let and the strength of man wizens 
Under white fears! 

[80] 



ODES 

Oh, swifter than the wings of the eagle 

And stronger than he is Desire — 
And she grippeth the soul unreleasing, 
And she troubleth the soul without ceasing, 
And she fareth afar on her regal 
Pinions of fire. 

And nearer than sight is or hearing, 
And keener than pain is or bliss, 
Are her light and her sound and her passion 
Where she patiently layeth her lash on 
And striketh the soul with endearing 
And terrible kiss : 

And deeper than sleep is or death is, 
And shrewder than life is or love 
Are the surge and the sweep of endeavor, 
Like a turbulent wind, like the fever 
Of a burning tornado whose breath is 
Whirled from above: 



[81] 



ODES 

Oh, the glittering things ye call real things, 

And the glittering thoughts ye call truth, 
They are trinkets and baubles and apings 
For children and impotent shapings 
Of the cowardly hearts that conceal things 
Burdened with ruth. 

They are weaves out of dream and illusion, 

They are fabricks of mockery and cheat, 
And their show is but shamming of graces, 
And they stead ye in ruinous places, 
And their work is a work of confusion 
Compact in deceit. 

Yea, the glittering things ye call real things, 
They are bauble and toy, they are dream,- 
But the world that is real is another 
Than this where we swelter and smother 
And in tawdry and tinsel conceal things 
Meant to redeem. 



[82] 



ODES 

And the heart of the man that is fearless, 

And the vision of him that is wise, 
They are strong unto Nature's revealing, 
And he bursteth the seals of her sealing, 
And layeth her beauteous and peerless 
Prone to his eyes. 

Till the edge of the world is upblazing 
With pillars of thunderous flame, 

And the breadth of the world is resplendant 

With scintillant glories ascendant 

From nadir to zenith upraising 
Tempestuous brame. 

Oh, nearer than seeing or touch is, 
And keener than bliss is or pain, 
Are the quiver and thrill of her haunting 
And the tug of her Tantalus taunting, 
Till the life that we nourish and clutch is 
A thing of disdain. 



[83] 



ODES 

Awake! For as dead are the sleeping! 

Awake ! As unborn he who nods ! 
But the summoning voice of the spirit, 
It shall rouse, it shall rouse them that hear it 
From the ranks of the lame and the creeping 

Up to the conquering gods! 



[84] 



ODE V 

There comes a kind of quieting with years 



VIII 

Adagio elegiac o 
There comes a kind of quieting with years 

Which soothes our griefs and stills the turbu- 
lent fears 
That threat and sting the youth 
Of man, — whose heritage is ruth 
Of ancient deed, and flicker of old thought 
Deep smouldering, and dead love's heavy dole, 
And taunt of buried passions in the soul, — 
The saintliness and sin of sires forgot. 

Yes, there is quiet as our elder days 
Give us in thrall to the accustomed ways 
Which our tamed wearied feet 
Impassively repeat. . . 
A quiet and a peace 
Sabbatical and solemn, 
Like to the still and sunny mood 
[87] 



ODES 

That falls to bless 

With strange and delicate loveliness 

Some antique column 

Standing amid its solitude 

Of vine and ruin, — until the smart 

Of olden passion fain would heal, 

And a cool and balmy ease 

Suffuses the tired limbs, and reveries steal 

With ministering gentleness 

Upon the stilling heart. 

There comes a quieting, and the strength to 

view 
With even contemplation 

The full narration 

Of men's ways, and to sever false from true. 

And the high court of the ages 

Marshals her witnessing years and sits 

In patient judgment, while her graybeard sages 

With thoughtful and compassionate eyes 

Decipher the dark writs 

Of human deed. . . 

[88] 



ODES 

Outmeasuring life's meed 

Of joy against its costly sacrifice, 

And laying bare 

Unto the foolish and the wise 

The ways that men must fare. 

Across the glass of time 
Darkling as in a shadowy mime 
Slow flit the images of those 
Who blindly sought and chose 
With zealous blindness, — each 
Unto the led multitude 
Striving to teach 
His vision of the good. 

Came he who walked with feet unshod 
The burning wilderness, content to eat 
Locusts and wild honey for his meat 
And brother with the beasts that slink 
In silence to their brackish nightly drink, 
So he might find his solitary God: 
[89] 



ODES 

And he who taught 

In flowing vestments with rich broidery 

wrought, 
Mid pleasant gardens voluptuous with the 

sweet 
Of roses, joying in the lissome line 
Of maiden youth, and finding the divine 
In gracious flagons of empurpled wine : 

And he who sat 

Beneath the spreading tree 

Of contemplation, impassively 

To Arhat and to Bodhisat 8 

Pointing the Fourfold Way unto surcease 

Of human ill and ire 

In the nerveless soul's release 

From soul's desire: 

He in whose trumpeted tones resound 
The thunderings of battle, 
Calling his crescent squadrons, — till in red pall 
[9o] 



ODES 

Of flame and blood the sickened world is wound, 
And wide around 

Is shrieking and shouting and the grisly rattle 
Of death at the throats of men, and crash 
Of hurtling charges, where the nations flee and 

fall 
Like driven cattle 
Under the blizzard's lash: 

And He who gave . . . gave all 

The sweetness of His life to piteous pain 

That men might gain 

A strange and distant and redeeming grace 

Which in the Kingdom's day should fall 

Like a sacred halo o'er the face 

Of the anguisht Universe, 

Healing its hidden curse. 

Yea, these be they 

Whom men have followed. . . But who shall 
say, 

[9i] 



ODES 
Who then shall say what life is wise?. . . 
There were ten virgins, and of them five 
Were foolish virgins, walking in sorrow, 
Nor light nor wisdom might they borrow, 
Nor might they wistfully arrive 
To greet the bridegrom, save by aid 
Of their own groping hands and blinded eyes 
So to their folly was their love betrayed. 

Through all the years 

Of human laughter and of human tears 

Sages and jesters, turn by turn 

Essay the riddle . . . And the teachers learn 

And the learners teach 

While the slow centuries slow upreach 

Where the world's elusive Wisdom broods 

In cloudy majesty o'er hidden altitudes. . . 

There comes a kind of quieting with years 
And with the years there comes 
A high and eerie peace, — 

[92] 



ODES 

As the homing spirit nears 

The sought release 

From her too mortal sense. . ., 

And as in a swound 

Supernal she is enwound 

Within a pulse of melody, and in her ear, 

Nearer than sound is near, 

A suave voice hums 

A sky-born music, and all the world is tense 

With loveliness. . . And the leaven 

Of beauty within the spirit burning 

Summons her ever higher, — 

Yea, as the stars inspire 

The plangent waves that leap with ceaseless 

yearning 
Sonorously to heaven. 



[93] 



POSTLUDE 

Earth! Thou wert his Mother 



IX 

Largo 

Earth! 
Thou wert his Mother, 
Who was conceived within thy fiery womb 
Ere time began 

And by the laboring years brought forth 
Unto the stalwart stature of a Man, — 
Thou wert his body's Mother, 
As thou shalt be his dread 
And desert tomb 
When all thy myriad life is gone, 
And on and on 
Thou still dost keep 

An even pace, an even pace, though dead, 
With thy far-shining sisters of the Deep: 

Earth! 
Thou wert his Mother, 
But his high sire — 

[97] 



ODES 

First of the deathless gods — was of another 

And a lordlier line: 

Eros, of the glowing wings, 9 

Eros, dartler of desire, 

Bright son of Beauty, in whose blood divine 

There is immortal fever 

And such a quickening fire 

As glorifieth aye the tears of things 

And fresheneth Love forever. 



[98] 



NOTES 



NOTES 

A theme of the scope of that here undertaken must 
naturally be supported by a body of allusions drawn 
from diverse sources and representing diverse cultures. 
It is inevitable, in such case, that the thinking of any 
one man will light upon illustrations of unequal general 
familiarity. Doubtless all of the allusions in the pres- 
ent work will be familiar to many readers ; but it seems 
much to expect that all will be familiar to all readers. 
Accordingly the author deems it worth while to add the 
following notes explanatory of those passages which 
refer to facts that, upon reflection, seem most accidental 
to our general store of knowledge. 

1 The Wakan of the Middle Sky: 

Wakan, or Wakanda, is the Siouan term for the 
powers that control and animate Nature. With the 
Plains Indians generally the heavens were regarded as 
comprising more than one region, the upper heaven, 
the Shining Quiet, the abode of the Great Father 
Spirit, and the Middle Region occupied by the medi- 
ators between the Deity above and Man below; among 
these mediators the Eagle was naturally prominent. 
The strophe deals with the widely prevalent Indian 
custom of sending a youth, on the verge of manhood, 
[IOI] 



ODES 

to fast and keep vigil in the wilderness until the 
spiritual powers of Nature reveal to him the tutelary 
who is to be his guide and guardian in the career of life. 

2 The Gods of Aztlan: 

Aztlan was the traditional home, in the far North- 
west, whence the Aztec nation set forth, under the 
guidance of its gods, on the march of conquest which 
was to make it the dominant power of pre-Spanish 
Mexico. " A less lovely set of Olympians than the 
Aztec gods it is difficult to conceive," says Andrew 
Lang, and the briefest perusal of Fray Bernardino de 
Sahagun's description of this pantheon of monsters will 
amply confirm Lang's judgment. Foremost, at least 
in monstrosity, stands the great warrior deity, Huitzih- 
pochtli. Prescott describes his image as the Spaniards 
first beheld it: " His countenance was distorted into 
hideous lineaments of symbolical import. In his right 
hand he wielded a bow, and in his left a bunch of 
golden arrows, which a mystic legend had connected 
with the victories of his people. The huge folds of a 
serpent, consisting of pearls and precious stones, were 
coiled round his waist, and the same rich materials 
were profusely sprinkled over his person. On his left 
foot were the delicate feathers of the humming-bird, 
which, singularly enough, gave its name to the dread 
deity. The most conspicuous ornament was a chain of 
gold and silver hearts alternate, suspended round his 
[ 102] 



ODES 

neck, emblematical of the sacrifice in which he most 
delighted. A more unequivocal evidence of this was 
afforded by three human hearts smoking and almost 
palpitating, as if recently torn from the victims, and 
now lying on the altar before him ! " An incredible 
tradition had it that more than seventy thousand victims 
were sacrificed at the dedication of his great teocalli 
(temple pyramid) in the Aztec capital. 

Less repulsive is the god Quetzalcoatl, who seems to 
have been supreme among the Toltec predecessors of 
the Aztecs. It was his, says Fray Bernardino, to dust 
the roads for the rain spirits, because " before the un- 
chaining of the waters come great winds and clouds of 
dust." The beautiful green tail feathers of the quetzal 
bird (Pharomacrus mocinno) formed the panache of 
this divinity. 

The mythic foeman of Quetzalcoatl was Tezcatli- 
poca ("the gleaming mirror"), regarded, according 
to the Fray, as " a god true and invisible, who pene- 
trates all places in heaven and earth and hell." As he 
wanders about the earth he raises wars, enmities, dis- 
sensions, turning man against man, until he earns the 
epithet " Sower of Discord." Tezcatlipoca is the 
ruler of the world, whose " sight and hearing penetrate 
wood and stone " and from whose whim, for good or 
for ill, is no escape. " Lord of Battles, Emperor of all, 
invisible and impalpable/' he is addressed; and in the 
world-weary mood of the Aztec suppliant, " We men, 
[ 103] 



ODES 

we are but a spectacle before you, your theatre serving 
for your laughter and diversion." 

3 Ormazd and Ahriman warring light with night; 
And Mithras, the Conqueror, who gave 
The blood baptism of the cave: 

The Persian god Mithras was the mythic incarna- 
tion of the conquering light of heaven which puts to 
flight the powers of darkness, led by the evil Ahriman. 
Symbolically he is the god of courage and righteousness 
and wisdom and honor, and again he is intercessor for 
man with Ormazd and the lesser spirits of heaven. 
The worship of Mithras passed into the Western 
world, with many other Oriental cults, in the declin- 
ing days of paganism, and before it was finally van- 
quished became the chief rival of Christianity. Its 
rites were celebrated in underground chapels ; and con- 
spicuous among these rites was the taurobolium, the 
sacrifice of the bull — symbolic of the cosmic bull con- 
quered by the god — whose blood was allowed to drip 
upon the naked mystic in a crypt beneath the latticed 
place of sacrifice. This baptism of blood, says Cumont, 
was regarded as a renovation of the human soul. 
Mithraism was to a great extent the religion of the 
Roman legionaries, by whom it was carried all over the 
Empire, and who, naturally enough, stressed the mili- 
tary virtues and prowess of their divinity, his oft-ap- 
[ 104] 



ODES 

plied epithets being Invictus, Insuperabilis: he was the 
Conquering Light, through courage and prowess and 
through his sympathy for suffering humanity, a 
Saviour of Men. 

4 Curete, Bacchant and wild Corybant, 
Rapt Maenad by the god intoxicant, 
And the swift-dancing rout 
Of frenzied Galli raising olden shout 
To Attis and to Cybele: 

The orgiastic religions, taking their rise mainly in 
Asia Minor, which from time to time swept the Classic 
peoples with passions of intemperance, centered their 
appeal in the personalities of two great Nature deities, 
— the Mothering Earth and her ever-dying and ever- 
reviving lover, the divine spirit of vegetation. Charac- 
teristic of the worship was the rout of wild torch-bear- 
ing dancers attendant upon the mother Goddess. Such 
were the Curetes of Crete, such the Corybants of 
Phrygia. The typical form of the goddess was Cybele, 
" the Great Mother of the Gods," whose worship, with 
that of her lover-god Attis, was introduced into Rome 
about 200 b. c. Her priests were the emasculate Galli, 
who celebrated the union of the goddess and her lover 
with wild cries to Hymen, god of marriage: " Io 
Hymen Hymenaee ! " Very similar, and perhaps of a 
like origin, were the revelries in honor of Dionysus, 

[105] 



ODES 

spirit of wine, — Bacchant and Maenad following their 
deity in a delirium of intoxication which seemed to 
them veritable possession by the spirit of divinity. The 
Semitic parallel to Cybele and Attis came to the Classic 
peoples in the myth of " Venus and Adonis/' Adonis 
being the Phoenician form of the vegetation god else- 
where in the Semitic world known as Tammuz. It is 
the lamentation for this yearly-dying deity that is men- 
tioned in Ezekiel 8, 14: "Then he brought me to 
the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was 
toward the north ; and, behold, there sat women weep- 
ing for Tammuz." 

5 The War of Light and Chaos: 

In the well-nigh universal Cosmogonic myth, varied 
as its details may be, primeval Chaos, conceived as a 
gloom-loving monster, is overcome by a hero-god of 
light, who fashions the orderly universe from the body 
of the slain monster. Perhaps the oldest version we 
possess of this myth is that given in the " Creation 
Epic " of the Babylonians, itself based upon more 
ancient Accadian sources. In this poem Tiamat, the 
Raging Deep, personates Chaos and leads the hosts of 
Darkness against the gods of Light. The hero-god is 
the great sun-tutelary of Babylon, Bel-Marduk, who 
proceeds against the monsters with lightning in front 
of him and his body filled with living fire. So terrible 
is he that of all the nether demons only Tiamat ven- 

[106] 



ODES 

tures to withstand his attack. The combat is thus de- 
scribed (following Professor Jastrow's translation) : 

Tiamat shrieked with piercing cries, 

She trembled and shook to her very foundations. 

She pronounced an incantation, she uttered her spell, 

And the gods of the battle took to their weapons. 

Then Tiamat and Marduk, the leader of the gods, 

stood up, 
They advanced to the fray, drew nigh to the fight. 
The lord spread out his net and caught her, 
The evil wind behind him he let loose in her face. 
As Tiamat opened her mouth to its full extent, 
He drove in the evil wind before she closed her lips. 
The mighty winds filled her stomach, 
Her heart failed her, and she opened wide her mouth; 
He seized the spear and pierced her stomach, 
He cut through her organs and slit open her heart. 
He bound her and cut off her life. 
He cast down her carcass and stood upon it. 

As one cuts " a flattened fish " Bel-Marduk shears into 
halves the body of Tiamat, fashioning from one of the 
halves " the dam of Heaven " which protects the uni- 
verse beneath from the all-enveloping cosmic waters. 
Herein he sets the stations of the stars and the heavenly 
bodies, while below he fashions " the mountain of 
Earth " as the habitation of man. 

6 The marble tent of Mogul Akbar: 
Futtehpore Sikhri was founded by Akbar, the great- 
[107] 



ODES 

est and wisest of the Mogul rulers of India and one 
of the greatest men of human history, about 1570. It 
was adorned by its builder with structures which rank 
among the architectural masterpieces of all time, and 
the town as a whole is doubtless the most beautiful 
creation of the Oriental builders' art. Within a gen- 
eration of Akbar's death, however, it was abandoned, 
probably because of scarcity of water; and it has since 
been maintained by the rulers of India rather as a 
monument than as a place of residence. 

7 Cibola s golden seven: 

The " Seven Golden Cities of Cibola " were the ob- 
ject of Spanish quests north from Mexico in the 
Seventeenth Century, the notable expedition being that 
of 1640, led by Coronado, which penetrated probably 
as far north as the valley of the Platte. The seven 
cities are presumed to have been the pueblos of the In- 
dians of New Mexico and Arizona, the fable of their 
riches being the color which Spanish desire gave to 
vague accounts of Indian cities in the far North. 

8 To Arhat and to Bodhisat 
Pointing the Four-fold Way: 

Arhat and Bodhisat are the names, in Southern and 
Northern Buddhism, for one who has acquired the 
highest degree of saintship and may expect in the next 

[108] 



ODES 

incarnation to appear as a buddha. Gautama Buddha 
is traditionally said to have taught beneath the sacred 
bo tree at Buddh Gaya in Bengal, where the light of 
revelation first came to him. Fundamental in his 
teaching is the doctrine that Nirvana, the blessed state 
of those freed from the fateful chain of incarnate lives, 
is to be won through knowledge of the " Four Truths," 
— that life is sorrow, that reincarnation comes of desire, 
that escape is through annihilation of desire, and that 
the way to this escape is righteousness in belief and 
resolve, in word and deed, in life and endeavor, in 
thought and meditation. 

9 Eros, of the glowing wings: 

Perhaps the most penetrating conception which 
Greek religious thought has given us is that of the role 
of Love, the god Eros, in the creation of the world. 
In the very substance of primeval Chaos is Love, a 
procreant essence; Love is first of the Immortals to 
assume form, and throughout the cosmic course Love 
is the lording spirit in the body of Being. So already 
with Hesiod : " First Chaos was, and then broad- 
bosomed Earth, and after, Love, most beautiful of the 
deathless gods." And the Eleatic Parmenides tells 
how Hestia, the central fire of the Universe, " fore- 
most of the gods, yea, foremost of all the gods, gave 
birth to Love." More poetically Aristophanes: From 
the cosmic egg in the bosom of Erebos, sprang forth 
[ 109] 



ODES 

" Eros, the longed-for," the wind-swift Eros, " gleam- 
ing with golden wings." With a touch of mystic 
pantheism, Plato makes Love the spirit of communion 
between god and man ; while a keener feeling both for 
its mortal poignancy and its immortal promise is in 
Euripides' wonderful choral prayer, so finely trans- 
lated by Gilbert Murray: 

Eros, Eros, who blindest, tear by tear, 

Men's eyes with hunger; thou swift Foe that pliest 
Deep in our hearts joy like an edged spear; 
Come not to me with Evil haunting near, 
Wrath on the wind, nor jarring of the clear 

Wing's music as thou fliest! 
There is no shaft that burneth, not in fire, 
Not in wild stars, far off and flinging fear, 
As in thine hands the shaft of All Desire, 

Eros, Child of the Highest! 



[no] 



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